Sorry, Mom.

I am laying here,
feeling sorry for myself for being here again,
and I am sorry about feeling sorry,
 and about the color of ugly blue on the walls that makes my eyes sting under so much fluorescent light.
I am swallowing the guilt of being hungry and calling it an excuse, to not swallow anything else.
 I wish I didn’t have to see the look on my mother's face, when the scale shows the truth, behind my illness, unwrapping all my lies in a present of guilt and sadness.
Even though I already knew,
I think she really wanted to believe I was better this time.
Now it’s as hard for me to look at her as it is to look at those ugly blue walls.

 I wish I never came,
 but If I had told my mom instead, that I don’t like doctor's appointments,
 she would’ve just stared ahead with the same sadness that’s on her face now,
 and told me to grow up.

 So I decide the doctor's office is much better with my eyes closed.

When I close my eyes, all I see are the bright lights overhead,
 and it reminds me of being little, being on stage,
under the spotlight in a Christmas musical my mom signed me up for because I was 7, with buckteeth and more confidence than the other kids in my class.

That was enough to make my mom believe I could be a star.
Every day after rehearsal, after dancing to the stage music and wearing the most extraordinary costumes, my mom would pick me up and tell me how proud she was,

that I was her star.

 I had not a problem in the world but having to pick out my dads bald head, and my moms red hair in the crowd full of parents and tape recorders.
It was never really that hard because he was always the only one with a camera within an inch of his face, and she was always the one right beside him asking if he’s recording.

 I would wave down at them, and give them my best Hollywood smile, as the curtains close, and I would hear my moms cackled laugh disappear into a million clapping hands and whistles.

 I always liked being on stage,

I liked being in the spotlight even more.

I’m in the spotlight once again, but it’s coming from the end of a small pen this time, to make sure my pupils are still dilating, or from a monitor,
and it doesn’t feel the same as it did when I was 7.

There’s no smiling faces, or music, certainly no clapping hands. Just beeping, doctors, keyboard clicks, and sneezes from down the hall,
and my mother crying in the waiting room until it’s time to go back to the car, where the entire drive home, will be a repeat of side eyes, and lecture which usually sounds something like,

“You are so selfish to do this.”

And,

 “Where did I go wrong?”

And,

I thought about asking her if she still thought I could be a star,


but I didn’t.